ORATION 


DELIVERED   BEFORE   THE 


CITY  COUNCIL  AND  CITIZENS 


OF    BOSTON,     ' 


JULY    4,    186  7, 


BY 


REV.    GEORGE    H.    HEPWORTH. 

0 


m 


S&  BO'StOKIA  $ 

'  X*  CONDI T Aft D.     % 


BOSTON  COLLEGE  LIBRARY 

ALFRED  MUDGE  &  SON,  CITY  PRINTERS,  34  SCHOOL  STREET. 

186  7. 


V) 


ORATION 


DELIVERED   BEFORE   THE 


CITY  COUNCIL  AND  CITIZENS 


OF    BOSTON, 


JULY    4,    186  7, 


BY 


REV.   GEORGE   H.   HEPWORTH. 


BOSTON  COLLEGE  LIBRARY 

CHESTNUT  HILL,  MASa 
BOSTON: 
ALFRED  MUDGE  &  SON,  CITY  PRINTERS,  34  SCHOOL  STREET 

186  7. 


113IJ5 


CITY   OF   BOSTON 


In  Board  of  Aldermen,  July  8,  1867. 

Ordered  :  That  the  thanks  of  the  City  Council  be  presented 
to  the  Reverend  George  H.  Hepworth  for  the  eloquent  and 
patriotic  oration  delivered  by  him  before  the  City  Government 
and  the  citizens  of  Boston  on  the  ninety-first  anniversary  of  the 
Declaration  of  American  Independence  j  and  that  he  be  request- 
ed to  furnish  a  copy  for  publication. 

Passed  —  sent  down  for  concurrence. 

CHAS.    W.    SLACK,  Chairman. 


Concurred. 


In  Common  Council,  July  11,  1867. 


WESTON    LEWIS,    President. 


Approved. 


OTIS   NORCROSS,  Mayor. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2011  with  funding  from 

Boston  Library  Consortium  Member  Libraries 


http://www.archive.org/details/orationdelivered1867hepw 


ORATION. 


Mr.    Mayor,    Gentlemen    of  the    City    Council,   Friends 
and    Fellow-  Citizens : 

The  progress  towards  an  ideal  society  and  an 
ideal  government  which  marks  each  new  page  of 
history  gives  the  largest  encouragement  to  the 
reformers  of  every  age.  We  are  moving  so  rapidly 
that  the  wildest  dreams  of  the  fanatic  of  to-day 
will  become  the  commonplace  realities  of  to-morrow, 
while  the  conservatism  of  to-day  embodies  all  the 
ideas  which  the  most  hopeful  theorist  uttered  yes- 
terday. Each  generation,  bearing  the  world  in  its 
giant  arms,  toils  bravely  up  the  mountain  side 
until  it  is  worn  and  weary,  then  lifts  its  precious 
burden  to  the  shoulders  of  the  young  and  fresh 
generation  that  succeeds,  and  lies  down  to  sleep. 
With  every  age  the  burden  grows  heavier  and  more 
precious,  as  mankind  are  freighted  with  larger 
responsibilities,  with  new  philanthropies,  and  with 
higher   duties,    and   with    every    age    the    strength    to 


6  .!  U  L  Y    4  ,    18  0  7. 

bear  it  grows  greater  as  men  become  more  wise, 
more  manly  and  more  Christian.  So,  by  slow 
degrees,  we  are  ascending  from  successive  slaveries 
to    successive   freedoms. 

As  the  geographer,  standing  on  the  hither  side 
of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  where  the  stream  comes 
gurgling  from  the  hidden  reservoir,  can  watch  that 
slender  thread  of  limpid  light  as  it  finds  its  way 
through  forest  and  plain,  broadened  and  deepened 
ever  and  anon  by  kindred  streams,  until  at  last 
made  omnipotent  by  the  grand  Missouri  and  the 
grander  Ohio,  it  pours  itself  a  resistless  flood 
through  the  centre  of  a  continent,  —  so,  I  take  it, 
the  historian  standing  on  the  hither  side  of  the 
rocky  summits  of  barbarism,  and  seeing  the  crude 
thought  that  is  to  shape  itself  into  law,  and  control 
society,  can  watch  that  slender  thread  as  it  finds  its 
way  from  age  to  age,  increased  here  by  the  vic- 
tories of  war  and  there  by  the  higher  victories  of 
peace,  until  at  last,  deepened  and  broadened  into 
omnipotence  by  the  Missouri  of  Revolution  and  the 
Ohio  of  Revelation,  it  pours  itself  through  our  cen- 
tury, bearing  on  its  bosom  the  world's  hopes  after 
the  higher  law,  and  the  thousand  educational  move- 
ments  by    which    that  law   is    to   be    reached. 

And,     gentlemen,     it     is     at     once     cheering    and 


ORATION.  i 

instructive  to  note  the  various  stages  of  this  great 
progressive  movement.  It  increases  our  faith  in 
man,  and  adds  inspiration  to  every  new  reformatory 
movement,  to  watch  the  nations  of  the  earth  strug- 
gling through  the  darkness  of  barbarism,  feudalism 
and  every  kind  of  oppression,  led  by  the  divine 
instinct  which  searches  for  the  light  of  a  larger 
liberty.  It  gives  us  a  new  strength  for  to-day's 
drudgery  and  toil  to  watch  the  gradual  refinement 
of  society,  the  constant  sloughing  off  of  old  and 
useless  customs,  and  the  constant  putting  on  of 
new   usages    which   better   fit   the   growing  people. 

The  French  were  only  children  playing  with  the 
toys  of  national  childhood,  until  Charlemagne  taught 
them  to  put  off  the  garments  of  barbarism,  and  to 
put  on  the  robes  and  manners  of  civilized  man. 
They  did  not  grow  to  conscious  national  maturity 
until  they  were  baptized  in  the  blood  of  the  Revo- 
lution of  '93,  and  they  will  not  achieve  their 
manifest  destiny  until  in  another  revolution  they  shall 
cast  off  the  imperial  burden  that  is  held  up  by  the 
points  of  half  a  million  bayonets  and  learn  to  gov- 
ern themselves.  The  English  were  little  better 
than  slaves  until  they  won  their  freedom  on  the 
plain  of  Runnymede,  and  they  did  not  grow  to 
manhood    until    they    had   beheaded    Charles    I.,  and 


8  JULY    4,    1867. 

proclaimed  that  no  Stuart  and  no  tyrant  should  ever 
make  laws  for  a  free  people.  That  grand  impulse 
which  has  driven  them  thus  far  will  not  let  them 
rest  until  they  strip  the  lawn  from  the  Bishops  in 
the  House  of  Lords,  and  the  parti- colored  riband 
from  the  so-called  nobility,  and  proclaim  aloud  that 
he  alone  is  peasant  who  has  a  peasant's  heart,  and 
he    alone   is    noble    who   has    a    princely    soul. 

America  began  its  great  work  of  reform  in 
the  seventeenth  century.  The  dreams  of  the  seers 
of  ages  began  to  crystallize  themselves  into  realities 
when  the  keel  of  the  Mayflower  grated  on  the  bar 
of  Plymouth  Harbor.  The  Colonists  entered  the 
high  school  of  the  new  politics  when  the  tocsin 
of  war  called  them  to  the  support  of  a  govern- 
ment of  men  by  men,  and  they  graduated  into  the 
true  manhood  of  the  race  when  they  planted  their 
victorious  banner  on  the  top  of  Lookout  Mountain, 
and   proclaimed   Liberty   throughout    all   the  land. 

We  have  come  to  believe  that  this  whole  coun- 
try is  consecrated  to  the  republican  experiment. 
The  magnificent  valley  between  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains and  the  Alleghanies  is  the  crucible  in  which 
history  will  test  the  political  possibilities  of  the 
race.  Untrammelled  by  any  of  the  traditions  or 
usages  of  the  old    world,   with    no    time-honored   and 


O  K  A  T  I  O  N  . 


<J 


time-hardened  social  prejudices  to  overcome,  with 
no  longing  after  the  pageantry  of  royalty,  we  feel 
ourselves  to  be  a  people  wholly  free,  and  standing 
on  the  very  threshold  of  a  work  too  large  to 
measure,  and  almost  too  appalling  to  contemplate. 
The  blood  in  the  veins  of  every  European  nation- 
ality runs  sluggishly  and  timidly.  Thrones  have  no 
stability ;  tyrants  no  power.  The  people  have  well- 
nigh  outgrown  their  worm-eaten  tradition  that  kings 
are  ordained  of  God,  and  he  who  wields  the  sceptre 
with  the  arrogance  of  earlier  times  does  it  at  the 
peril  of  his  life.  The  continent  that  once  held  the 
person  of  royalty  sacred  now  simply  endures  a  king 
who  knows  that  he  not  only  governs  but  is  in  his 
turn  governed.  The  blood  in  the  veins  of  America, 
on  the  other  hand,  leaps  through  the  ruddy  channel 
of  life  with  all  the  force  and  promise  of  youth.  We 
believe  that  we  have  a  special  mission  ;  that  the 
whole  country  is  ours  from  the  warm  gulf  to  the 
frigid  zone,  and  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  ; 
and  that  here,  fired  with  simple  faith  in  educated 
men,  we  shall  be  able,  without  the  aid  of  royal  favor, 
to  make  our  own  laws,  watch  over  our  own  interests, 
and  write  our  own  history.  If  the  Old  World  inter- 
feres, either  by  that  strange  neutrality  which  refuses 
help    to    the    loyal   while    it    supplies    arms     to    the 


10  JULY    4,     1867. 

disloyal,  or  by  sending  a  wretched  debauchee  to 
turn  our  flank  in  Mexico,  we  have  but  one  word  of 
warning,  —  Hands  off;  America  is  neither  forgetful  of 
her   friends  nor    afraid    of    her    foes. 

By  slow  degrees  our  geographical  limits  are  widen- 
ing. Within  a  few  years  we  have  put  our  seal  upon 
the  golden  mountains  of  California  and  the  rich  plains 
of  Texas.  Lately  the  magnificent  territory  of  the 
extreme  northwest  has  been  bought.  It  cannot  be 
many  years  before  that  people  who  have  resisted 
tyranny  with  wonderful  bravery,  who  have  at  last 
hedged  in  within  a  wall  of  sharp  bayonets  the  usurper 
and  the  adventurer,  will  knock  loud  for  entrance  into 
the  Home  of  the  Free.  It  cannot  be  long  before 
we  shall  have  that  narrow  belt  of  land  that  lies  on 
the  banks  of  the  St.  Lawrence  and  the  shore  of  the 
lakes.  For  two  generations  it  has  been  the  asylum 
of  the  heroic  black  man  who  refused  to  bear  the 
stripes  of  the  overseer,  and  the  black  woman  who 
denied  her  body  to  the  lust  of  her  master ;  and  now, 
by  the  wonderful  progress  of  events,  it  offers  itself  a 
hospital  to  the  sick  at  heart,  those  arrogant  heroes 
whose  "  dreams  have  faded  all  at  length,"  and  who 
find  the  air  of  free  America  too  bracing  for  the  slender 
life  that  remains  after  the  fruitless  struggle.  Then,  with 
the  whole  continent  our  own,  we  can  march  through  the 


ORATION.  11 

ages,  keeping  step  to  the  music  of  Justice,  Morality, 
and  Political  Righteousness.  Gentlemen,  few  nations 
have  such  heavy,  glorious  responsibilities  as  we.  Re- 
publicanism is  but  just  begun.  It  is  a  temple  whose 
arching  roof  will  sometime  in  the  future  offer  its  shelter 
and  protection  to  the  people  of  every  clime.  To-day, 
the  poor  of  Europe  may  live  content  within  the  thatched 
cottage  in  political  oblivion,  while  the  favored  and  the 
wealthy  sit  beneath  the  gilded  roof  of  power  and  shape 
laws  to  suit  their  tastes  or  caprices  ;  but  the  hour  shall 
yet  come,  how  far  off  in  the  distance  it  may  be  none 
can  tell,  when  the  great  heart  and  strong  arm  of  the 
people  of  every  nationality  shall  decree  that  there  shall 
be  no  king  to  live  in  a  palace,  and  no  citizen  so  lowly 
that  he  can  have  no  voice  in  making  the  laws  that 
govern  him,  but  when  all  the  people  shall  come 
together  beneath  the  same  roof  to  be  ruled  each  by 
the  whole  and  the  whole  by  each. 

Standing,  then,  as  we  do,  at  the  beginning  of  a 
new  era,  looking  forward  with  large  hope  to  a 
peaceful  and  glorious  future,  it  is  well  for  us  to 
come  together  on  this  mighty  anniversary  to  measure 
our  strength  and  confess  our  weakness.  We  ac- 
knowledge with  due  gratitude  the  constant  and 
especial  presence  of  that  Providence  which  has  led 
us    along   the    weary    road,    guiding    us    in    the    day- 


12  JULY    4,    1867. 

time  by  the  pillar  of  cloud  that  rose  from  the 
battle-field,  and  in  the  night  season  by  the  pillar 
of  flame  that  formed  the  bivouac-fires  of  the  army 
of  the  Republic.  We  should  be  unworthy  citizens 
if  we  failed  to  recognize  the  hidden  Hand  that  has 
guarded  us,  or  forgot  to  speak  of  it  in  the  midst 
of   our   universal   festivities. 

The  particular  elements  of  our  nationality  to  which 
I  desire  to  call  your  special  attention  are,  first,  the 
Southern  Element,  its  nature,  and  its  probable  influ- 
ence   on   the   future. 

The  South  has  never  been  a  help  to  the  cause 
of  Republicanism.  The  one  incendiary  element  in 
our  government,  the  element  of  caste,  it  has  stood 
in  bold  contrast  to  that  levelling  and  democratic 
influence  which  has  been  the  boast  and  pride  of 
the  North.  With  a  territory  almost  unparalleled 
for  richness  of  soil ;  with  long  mountain  ranges 
containing  in  large  abundance  every  mineral  which 
adds  to  the  wealth  or  strength  of  society ;  with  a 
climate  favorable  to  the  finest  specimens  of  physical 
and  moral  manhood ;  with  broad  rivers  that  run 
through  every  valley  of  the  region ;  with  noble 
forests  to  supply  every  domestic  and  commercial 
need  ;  with  agricultural  possibilities  that  would  rouse 
the    ambition    of   almost    any    people,  —  with    all    this 


ORATION. 


13 


in  its  favor,  we  are  compelled  to  admit  that  the 
whole  region  is  to-day  practically  unknown  and 
undeveloped.  The  granite  hills  and  sterile  soil  of 
New  England,  where  niggardly  nature  gives  only 
what  she  must,  developed  by  the  strong  arm  and 
active  brain  of  freedom,  have  done  more  for  the 
cause  of  civilization,  more  for  the  commercial  wel- 
fare of  the  world,  than  all  that  vast  territory  that 
might  have  shaped  the  destinies,  and  controlled  the 
government  of  the  country.  When,  in  the  course 
of  a  few  years,  the  political  storm  shall  have  sub- 
sided, and  we  come  to  explore  and  count  the  value 
of  this  region,  we  shall  hnd  a  new  argument  against 
slavery,  and  a  new  cause  for  gratitude  that  we 
possess  so  rich  a  domain.  The  wealth  that  lies 
hidden  in  the  rocky  caverns  of  the  Alleghanies  and 
in  the  fastnesses  of  the  Cumberland  range,  calling 
on  the  thrift  and  enterprise  of  the  new  generation 
of  young  men,  is  beyond  all  calculation.  Carry  to 
the  South,  and  awaken  in  the  South,  the  same 
foresight,  energy,  genius  and  inventive  power  that 
have  subdued  the  soil  of  the  North,  and  before 
those  who  are  now  in  middle  life  shall  have  gone 
to  their  rest,  we  shall  find  that  one  of  the  richest 
and  best  parts  of  America  lies  between  the  Ohio 
and   the    Gulf. 


14  JULY    4,    18  G7. 

But  to-day  we  have  more  interest  in  the  political 
aspect  of  that  region.  Everywhere  is  chaos,  social 
anarchy,  while  our  ears  are  every  moment  greeted 
with  the  roar  of  some  brigand  mob,  or  the  cry 
of  some  half-murdered  man  or  outraged  woman.  How 
much  of  this  is  the  inevitable  consequence  of  a 
great  war  I  cannot  say ;  how  much  might  be 
avoided  if  the  victors  had  only  a  fixed  and  deter- 
mined policy,  and  an  executive  that  dared  to  stand 
on  the  true  republican  idea  and  speak  with  the 
consciousness  of  having  twenty  millions  of  freemen 
behind  him,  I  am  unable  to  determine.  This,  how- 
ever, I  know ;  that  mobs  and  murders  are  the  rag- 
ged, blood-bedraggled  fringes  of  the  crimson  garment 
of  war.  It  is  scarcely  to  be  hoped  that  the  tem- 
pest-tossed ocean  will  calm  in  a  moment,  or  that 
the  frenzy  of  the  crushed  and  defeated  will  in  a 
single  hour  calm  itself  into  the  propriety  of  the 
good  citizen.  If  the  North  will  only  be  true,  there 
is  nothing  to  fear.  If  we  will  not  rush  at  once 
with  only  the  greed  for  gain,  into  the  selfishness 
of  accumulation,  forgetful  and  careless  of  the  high 
political  concerns  of  the  country,  the  work  of  re- 
construction, now  so  perplexing,  will  be  as  easy  as 
the  work  of  the  sculptor  who  shapes  the  plastic 
clay.         Too    long    already    have    we    delayed.         We 


ORATION.  15 

have  lost  headway  by  the  "  backing  and  filling " 
of  our  mere  politicians.  We  have  scarcely  known 
what  to  do,  or,  if  we  have  caught  a  glimpse  of 
duty  now  and  then,  we  have  not  had  the  moral 
courage    to    perform   it. 

If  I  know  anything  about  the  Southern  people 
I  know  that  all  that  is  needed  to  insure  perfect 
success  in  the  great  work  before  us  is  that  we 
shall  first  know  what  to  do  and  then  proceed  to 
do  it.  We  have  harmed  our  cause  and  stayed 
our  progress  more  than  can  be  told,  by  the  exceed- 
ing unsteadiness  of  our  political  policy.  To  lift 
the  flag  for  a  while  with  loud  huzzas,  as  though  we 
intended  to  be  exceedingly  severe,  and  then  to  drop 
it  out  of  regard  to  the  feelings  of  the  foe,  is  only 
to  exhibit  a  weakness  which  costs  us  our  self- 
respect,  while  it  adds  a  battalion  to  the  corps  of 
the  enemy.  Nail  the  flag  of  your  policy  to  the 
mast-head,    and    reconstruction    will   be   easy. 

There  is  in  the  South,  to-day,  a  large  party 
that  will  gladly  co-operate  with  us.  It  is  com- 
posed of  that  middle  class  that  never  had  any 
heart  in  the  war,  that  has  reaped  from  it  only 
financial  ruin.  These  people  hate  the  large  land- 
owners as  the  small  trader  always  hates  the  monop- 
olist.       For    years     they    have    seen    that    the    cause 


16  JULY    4,     1867. 

of  secession  was  not  their  cause  ;  that  they  had  no 
other  interest  in  it  than  that  sad  interest  which 
the  serf  has  in  the  victory  of  his  lord ;  that  the  fight 
could  only  end  in  a  continuance  of  servitude  for  them- 
selves and  their  families.  These  are  the  men  who 
congregate  in  the  great  centres  to  listen  so  eagerly  to 
the  words  of  orators  from  the  North.  A  new  life 
is  opening  to  them.  The  gyves  have  dropped  from 
their  wrists,  and  they  are  for  the  first  time  catch- 
ing a  glimpse  of  republican  America.  They  will 
form  the  grand  Southern  political  party  of  the  fu- 
ture. They  are  in  the  vanguard  of  the  great  army 
of  reconstruction,  and  have  bivouacked  on  their  lit- 
tle farms,  waiting  to  receive  orders  from  headquar- 
ters where    to    march. 

The  politicians  and  the  so-called  aristocrats  of  the 
South,  —  those  who  were  foremost  in  the  councils 
of  secession,  —  who  were  willing  to  risk  their  all 
for  the  re-establishment  of  slavery,  deserve  no  pity 
from  us.  They  risked  and  lost ;  let  them  suffer 
the  full  consequences  of  their  guilt.  With  the  poor, 
rebellion  was  a  delusion ;  and  a  magnanimous  victor 
can  afford  to  forgive  the  deluded,  if  their  delu- 
sion has  been  dispelled.  With  the  educated  and 
wealthy,  secession  was  a  crime,  and  we  are  not 
magnanimous,    but    weak    and     pusillanimous,    if    we 


ORATION. 


17 


disregard  it.  By  connecting  no  punishment  with 
open  disloyalty,  we  put  a  premium  on  political 
ambition  for  the  future.  Fifty  years  hence,  when 
another  dissension  shall  shake  this  country  to  its 
centre,  when  the  reverberations  of  another  civil  war 
shall  rouse  the  people  to  arms,  bad  mejn  will  look 
back  to  this  hour  when  they  reckon  the  probable 
cost  of  their  venture.  If  they  see  that  the  people 
have  attached  the  highest  penalty  to  any  assault 
upon  the  Government,  they  will  hesitate  long  before 
they  commit  themselves  to  the  uncertainties  of  a 
rebellion.  But  if,  on  looking  back,  they  hear  no 
word  of  warning  from  such  times  as  these ;  if  on 
reading  the  annals  of  America  from  '60  to  '67, 
they  find  no  record  of  any  punishment  whatever 
that  stamps  the  adventurer  with  infamy ;  if  they 
see  that  confiscated  estates  are  all  returned  with  a 
half  apology  on  the  part  of  the  Government  for 
having  taken  them  at  all  ;  that  a  pardon  is  ob- 
tained for  the  asking ;  that  the  heroes  of  the 
rebellion  are  feted  by  the  people ;  that  the  very 
leader,  when  brought  into  Court,  is  set  at  liberty 
on  a  petty  bail,  and  that  even  that  is  supplied  by 
a  chief  of  the  party  that  conducted  the  war,  and 
that  there  can  be  no  surer  or  safer  or  nearer  road 
to    preferment    than    that     which     leads     through     a 


18  JULY    4,    1867. 

rebellion,  think  you  they  will  hesitate  long  before 
committing  themselves  to  a  cause  which,  if  it  fails 
utterly,  leads  to  no  disastrous  consequences,  and 
which,  regarded  only  as  a  speculation,  offers  a 
thousand  inducements  to  the  daring?  I  tell  you 
nay. 

I  cannot  help  feeling  that  one  of  the  prominent 
weaknesses  of  a  Republic  is  its  forgetfulness  of 
great  offences  and  of  great  offenders.  The  minis- 
ters of  justice  track  the  criminal  who  has  lifted  his 
hand  against  a  single  life  until  his  hiding-place  is 
reached.  They  chain  him  to  the  dungeon  floor ; 
they  summon  the  witnesses  of  the  awful  deed ; 
they  pronounce  in  solemn  voice  the  sentence  of 
death,  and  do  not  lose  sight  of  him  until  the  turf 
falls  on  his  dead  body.  All  this  is  right,  because 
the  welfare  of  society  demands  it.  But,  alas  ! 
when  a  monster  criminal,  urged  only  by  personal 
ambition,  aims  at  the  political  life  of  the  whole 
community ;  when  he  seeks  to  turn  the  spirit  of 
the  age  from  freedom  back  to  slavery ;  when  he 
would  raze  to  the  ground  the  temple  of  our 
national  prosperity,  whose  corner-stones  were  laid 
in  the  blood  of  the  earlier  Revolution,  and  every 
granite  block  in  whose  walls  is  a  memento  of  some 
desolated   home,  Justice  uses    no  harsher  phrase  than 


ORATION. 


19 


when  she  calls  him  "  the  most  colossal  character 
of  the  times,"  and  Punishment  performs  no  severer 
duty  than  when  she  bids  him  retire  to  the  banks 
of  the  St.  Lawrence  to  spend  the  gold  which  his 
foresight   has    supplied. 

Ah !  gentlemen,  I  am  not  cruel.  I  ,do  not  like 
to  look  even  upon  the  merited  punishment  of  a 
bad  man.  But  this  I  say:  There  is  one  man 
too  many  in  America.  Yonder,  in  every  State 
south  of  the  Ohio,  slumber  the  brave  defenders  of 
the  flag.  The  plough  of  the  husbandman  grates  in 
the  soil  above  their  beds ;  there  is  no  headstone 
to  tell  where  they  sleep  ;  they  are  remembered  only 
in  the  sighs  of  aching  hearts  throughout  the  North ; 
their  only  requiem  is  the  perpetual  moaning  of  the 
wind  through  the  cypress  boughs.  America,  ever 
busy  and  eager,  filled  with  the  hope  of  the  morrow 
more  than  with  the  memory  of  any  past,  holds 
the  great  offender,  the  man  who  stood  at  the  head 
of  the  organized  rebellion  and  cheered  his  soldiers 
to  their  bloody  work,  within  her  fortress  walls. 
The  people  cry  out  for  justice  with  thunder  tones 
that  echo  from  the  Pacific  shore  to  the  Atlantic 
slope.  But  policy  or  cowardice,  I  know  not  which, 
finds  excuse  for  delay,  and  by  slow  degrees  the 
people's  cry    grows    fainter    and    fainter,  until    at   last 


20  JULY    4,    1867. 

when  the  prisoner  is  released,  scarcely  a  ripple  of 
surprise  or  interest  ruffles  the  surface  of  the 
nation's  daily  life.  Posterity  shall  read  this  terrible 
sentence,  written  on  the  bloody  page  of  our  time  : 
A  Republic  attaches  no  penalty  to  a  great  crime. 
Only  petty  guilt  is  punished ;  while  colossal  crime 
hnds  an  apologist,  if  not  an  eulogist,  and  holds  its 
court  in  Canada.  God  grant  it  may  not  be  the 
seed  -  corn   of    another   rebellion. 

But,  in  looking  at  the  population  of  the  Southern 
States,  and  trying  to  fix  their  place  and  value  in 
the  future  of  America,  we  cannot  afford  to  be 
unmindful  of  the  four  millions  of  men  and  women 
whose  history  is  full  of  romance,  moral  courage  and 
faith.  Claiming  our  admiration  for  their  unwavering 
loyalty  to  the  flag  during  the  darkest  days  of  the 
war,  when  their  very  ignorance  seemed  illumined 
by  the  strange  light  of  the  dim  hope  of  liberty,  as 
their  masters'  culture  was  darkened  by  the  gloomy 
frenzy  of  Slavery,  and  claiming  also  our  respect 
for  the  heroic  way  in  which  they  received  the 
divine  right  to  be  free,  we  may  safely  prophesy 
that  they  will  do  us  no  dishonor  in  any  of  the 
trying  days  to  come.  The  men,  whatever  their 
color,  who  could  meet  together  at  midnight,  after  a 
hard  day's    labor,  in  the   middle   of  the   swamp,  with 


ORATION.  21 

the  lash  and  the  bloodhound  as  the  probable 
penalty,  and  pray  for  the  victorious  oncoming  of 
an  army  concerning  which  they  knew  nothing 
except  through  the  lying  lips  of  their  owners  and 
the  revealing  instincts  of  their  own  hearts,  are  as 
worthy  of  our  confidence,  and  will  become  as  trusty 
elements  of  the  Republic,  as  any  class  or  clique  in 
the  South  that  has  outlived  the  rebellion.  The 
natural  allies  of  Liberty  are  always  those  who  have 
chafed  in  their  chains.  Prejudice  aside,  I  would 
rather  trust  with  the  solemn  responsibility  of  a  vote 
the  rank  and  file  of  those  heroes  who  charged  at 
Port  Hudson,  conscious  that  they  were  marching 
into  the  Valley  of  Death,  but  doing  it  with  the 
courage  of  Thermopylae,  and  with  the  hope  to  stem 
the  tide  of  Southern  falsehood  and  Northern  preju- 
dice, than  the  most  cultured  politicians  of  Richmond, 
who,  having  the  power,  have  degraded  it  to  personal 
ambition,  even  though  it  involve  Gettysburg  and 
Andersonville.  Ignorance  and  principle  are  weightier 
than  refinement    and    disloyalty. 

No  country  presents  so  sublime  a  spectacle  as  ours. 
A  whole  race  is  uplifting  its  hands,  and  asking  for 
the  knowledge  how  to  live.  Catching  a  glimpse  of 
the  glory  of  the  great  Republic  of  which  they  have 
suddenly  become  a  part,  conscious  of  all  the  obstacles 


22  JULY    4,    1867. 

which  impede  their  progress  towards  that  education 
which  is  to  mould  them  into  reliable  citizens,  with  a 
past  behind  them  of  romantic  devotion  and  unswerving 
loyalty,  they  only  ask  that  we  will  protect  them  by  our 
laws  in  their  rights  as  workmen,  as  traders,  as  mer- 
chants, as  fathers  and  as  husbands,  promising  in  return 
to  stand  by  our  side  in  all  the  great  political  and  social 
struggles  of  the  future.  It  is  little  enough  to  ask  ;  it 
is  a  small  boon  to  be  granted  by  a  noble  people. 

And  the  contrast  between  them  and  others  to  whom 
we  grant  every  political  privilege  is  not  so  striking  as 
we  think.  The  great  West  is  full  of  loyal  men  who 
have  no  other  education  save  that  they  have  got  on  the 
prairies  and  among  their  herds.  Europe  pours  her  tens 
of  thousands  every  year  into  the  territories  beyond  the 
Mississippi.  Many  of  them  are  men  who  are  as  inno- 
cent of  the  use  of  the  pen  and  the  spelling-book  as  the 
humblest  black  man  ;  but  they  learn  enough  from  the 
atmosphere  of  the  country,  and  from  the  thousand  acres 
which  they  till,  to  join  the  political  army  of  the 
Republic,  and  denounce  by  their  votes  the  recreant 
senator  and  the  disloyal  president.  They  know  liberty 
from  slavery,  not  by  the  distinctions  which  are  made  in 
the  dictionary,  but  by  the  practical  differences  evident 
in  society.  You  may  not  call  it  scholarship,  but  it  is 
wisdom  ;  it  is  knowledge  acquired  by  actual  experiment ; 


ORATION.  23 

and  such  a  man  can  be  trusted  more  safely  than  the 
most  elegant  wire-puller  of  the  land.  So  with  the  black 
man  who  knows  not  how  to  spell  the  word  slavery,  but 
who  has  felt  its  chains  and  submitted  to  its  lash.  He 
knows  the  Confederate  from  the  Union  army  to-day  as 
well  as  he  did  in  '63.  Listen !  in  Atlanta  the  slave 
owner  is  speaking.  It  is  a  strange  sight  to  see  him 
pleading  with  the  men  whom  he  would  have  driven  like 
sheep  a  few  years  ago.  But  to-day  he  is  no  more  man 
than  they ;  and,  if  you  measure  manhood  as  you  ought, 
not  so  much.  How  insinuating  is  his  eloquence !  He 
has  boasted  that  only  the  man  who  has  lived  with  the 
blacks  can  talk  to  them  with  any  effect ;  that  they  will 
have  more  confidence  in  their  former  masters  than  in 
any  gentleman  from  the  North ;  that  they  will  inevi- 
tably, from  the  force  of  habit  and  the  real  love  they  bear 
them,  vote  for  the  old  overseers.  Such  a  picture  of 
patriarchal  life  is  painted,  such  tender  ties  of  affection 
between  the  whipper  and  the  whipped  are  said  to  exist, 
that  we  should  expect  the  whole  assemblage  to  vote 
with  unanimous  force  for  the  dear  old  master,  who 
smiles  on  his  former  slaves  so  benignantly,  and  so 
politely  asks  for  their  influence  in  the  name  of  the 
sweet  memories  of  auld  lang  syne.  But  poor,  ignorant, 
degraded  as  they  are,  they  are  too  cunning  to  be  cheated 
by  promises,  and  too  clever  to  be  eloquently  cajoled  out 


24  JULY    4,    1867. 

of  their  rights.  As  the  chilling  snow-flakes  fall,  so  fall 
his  specious  words.  The  audience  is  unmoved :  The 
speaker  sees  that  he  is  speaking  to  a  whirlwind,  and  is 
not  heeded.  He  puts  his  smile  from  off  his  lips,  tills  his 
face  with  the  old  look  of  the  master  and  his  mouth  with 
insolence  and  obscenity,  and  Richard  is  himself  again. 
I  tell  you,  gentlemen,  the  colored  people  of  the  South 
are  better  citizens  of  the  Republic  than  the  wily  orator 
who  addresses  them  thus. 

Let  America  do  them  justice,  and  a  great  reward 
will  be  hers.  Give  them,  under  proper  restrictions, 
the  same  restrictions  which  apply  to  their  white 
neighbors,  the  right  to  vote,  thus  rewarding  the 
black  soldier  for  his  loyalty  to  the  flag,  and  cloth- 
ing the  humblest  with  a  responsibility  which  will 
rouse  his  ambition  and  stir  within  him  a  longing 
after  education,  and  you  will  reap  the  fruit  of 
your  justice  in  a  phalanx  that  will  constitute  itself 
the  wall  of  your  defence  in  any  coming  struggle. 
Confiscate  enough  of  the  disloyal  territory  to  ensure 
each  loyal  man  his  forty  acres  for  a  homestead ; 
give  him  land  of  his  own  under  his  feet,  and 
the  flag  of  America  over  his  head,  and  you  have 
nothing  to  fear.  If  any  voice  comes  from  the 
great  sacrifices  of  six  bloody  years,  it  says,  Secure 
the    safety   of    the    Government    beyond    a    peradven- 


ORATION.  25 

ture,  and  reward  those  who  have  been  true,  from 
the  treasury  of  those  who  have  been  false.  The 
sentiment  of  mankind  will  defend  such  a  policy  of 
severity,  and  the  next  generation  of  black  men 
will  repay  our  justice  by  a  million  votes  for 
Liberty.  If  we  are  reckless  enough  tp  be  unjust, 
we  deserve  to  fall ;  if  we  have  the  courage  to  be 
just,    we    shall   live   forever. 

I  turn  now  to  the  brief  consideration  of  the 
second  element  of  our  nationality,  —  the  Western. 
No  Eastern  man  can  appreciate  the  vastness  and 
the  importance  of  the  Great  West  unless  he  has 
travelled  over  its  boundless  prairies,  and  looked 
upon  the  rushing,  seething  torrent  of  its  commer- 
cial life.  One  is  appalled  at  the  contemplation  of 
its  immense  territory.  Single  States  cover  an  area 
larger  than  the  whole  of  New  England.  Huge 
lines  of  railroad  stretch  westward  from  Chicago 
for  more  than  a  thousand  miles  ;  the  mines  of 
Lake  Superior,  exhaustless,  hold  in  their  earthen 
embrace  mineral  wealth  that  startles  the  world  ; 
coal  beds  underlie  the  rich  soil  everywhere,  a  great 
reservoir  of  power  waiting  to  be  applied  to  the 
wrork  of  civilization  ;  broad  acres,  whose  agricul- 
tural possibilities  defy  our  power  of  reckoning, 
stretch    far  beyond    your   straining  vision ;    and  above 


26  JULY    4,    1867. 

all  a  population  restless,  ambitious,  and  in  the  full 
vigor  of  early  manhood,  demand  our  enthusiastic 
admiration.  These  characteristics  point  to  a  future 
whose  magnitude  will  accord  with  the  miracles 
already  achieved.  Not  always  obeying  the  scrip- 
tural injunction,  not  to  think  more  highly  of  them- 
selves than  they  ought  to  think  ;  believing  with  a 
friendly  kind  of  sincerity,  a  sincerity  that  looks 
pityingly  on  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  earth  who 
do  not  live  in  the  West,  that  if  there  is  a  pivot 
on  which  the  whole  world  swings  it  is  somewhere 
within  a  few  hours'  ride  of  Chicago  or  St.  Louis ; 
they  yet  do  exhibit  a  vigor,  a  commercial  hero- 
ism, a  willingness  to  undertake  new  and  great 
projects  which  no  other  part  of  this  country 
presents. 

In  the  war  they  'discovered  their  political  policy, 
to  save  the  whole  country,  and  to  make  and  keep 
the  whole  a  free  country.  Their  brave  boys  are 
under  the  sod  of  everv  battle-field  :  their  brave 
women,  true  Spartans,  tilled  the  soil,  drove  the 
herds,  reaped  the  harvests,  sold  the  produce,  in- 
vested the  capital,  and  made  us  proud  to  believe 
that  in  America,  when  the  great  emergency  comes, 
our  women  claim  the  right  to  do  our  work,  some- 
times with  hearts   aching  towards   the   field   of  strife, 


ORATION.  27 

while    we    are  dressing  into  line,   or  fighting  for   the 
grand   future. 

The  political  importance  of  the  West  cannot  be 
overstated.  It  already  wields  a  large  part  of  the 
republican  power  of  the  country,  and  it  will  not  be 
many  years  before  we  shall  look  to  ,the  millions 
near  the  Mississippi  to  crystallize  into  laws  the  hopes 
and  aspirations  which  freighted  the  Mayflower. 
The  South  has  as  yet  shown  no  political  charac- 
teristics. There  is  no  party  there  whose  principles 
can  be  reckoned  as  forces  for  the  future.  The 
ideas  of  the  people  are  chaotic.  We  believe  that 
by  the  introduction  of  Northern  educational  institu- 
tions they  will  sometime  grow  into  that  radical 
love  of  liberty  which  is  to  be  the  bulwark  of  the 
nation ;  but  to-day  we  are  not  sure  of  their  future. 
The  States  that  lie  between  the  James  River,  the 
Hudson  River  and  the  great  Illinois  prairies  are 
full  of  political  theories  unsound  and  unsafe.  Too 
timid  to  confirm  by  law  whatever  is  right  in 
morals,  too  much  bound  by  commercial  interests  to 
be  radical  in  their  thinking  and  voting,  loaded 
down  with  the  debris  of  that  kind  of  democracy 
which  thought  twice  before  it  struck  a  blow  for 
the  tottering  government,  it  will  for  a  long  while 
stand   neutral  in    the    great  political   contests  that  are 


28  JULY    4,    1867. 

coming.  But  the  Far  West,  with  its  large  farms 
and  its  large-hearted  men  and  women,  its  immense 
number  of  Germans  and  Scandinavians,  who  bring 
with  them  to  their  homes  the  fresh,  beautiful  love 
of  liberty  which  compelled  them  to  leave  the  old 
world,  if  we  can  only  plant  in  its  midst  the  school- 
houses  and  churches,  the  lyceums  and  the  presses 
which  have  been  the  moulding  influences  of  the 
East,  can  always  be  relied  upon  to  stand  firm  for 
that  justice  between  man  and  man,  and  for  those 
rights  and  privileges  which  enable  the  poorest  born 
to  reach  and  hold  the  highest  office  within  the 
people's  gift.  Nothing  is  more  evident  than  this, 
that  New  England  and  the  West  will  write  the 
next   page    of  American  history. 

I  believe  this,  because  the  West  is  growing  more 
rapidly  than  any  other  part  of  the  country.  The 
tens  of  thousands  who  emigrate  from  the  poverty 
of  the  old  to  the  hopes  of  the  new  world,  anxious 
to  build  a  home  at  once,  naturally  gravitate  to 
that  vast  territory  which  belongs  to  any  one  who 
can  level  the  forest  and  till  the  soil.  They  are  a 
hardy  class  of  men  and  women.  Full  of  health 
and  vigor  and  ambition,  they  somehow  get  into  the 
spirit  of  the  age  at  once,  and  so,  by  means  of 
the  ploughs,  rakes,   reaping    and   threshing    machines, 


ORATION.  29 

conceived  by  the  genius  and  made  by  the  skill  of 
Eastern  men,  they  are  marching  along  the  high- 
way of  industry  to  social  position,  patriotism  and 
wealth.  What  a  transformation  from  their  sur- 
roundings in  Europe  !  There  they  were  only  serfs, 
crushed  into  sloth  or  indifference  by  the  leaden 
weight  of  a  public  opinion  that  frowned  upon  all 
attempts  to  rise.  They  walked  along  the  narrow 
path  which  had  been  trodden  by  their  fathers,  and 
their  children  had  no  higher  hope  than  they.  The 
mere  drudges  of  society,  they  chafed  against  the 
chains  that  held  them,  and  at  last  found  liberty  and 
hope  for  themselves  and  their  little  ones  in  the 
midst    of  the   great  prairies  of   the   West. 

So  in  a  few  years  the  log  huts  on  the  river's 
bank  have  disappeared  and  the  thrifty,  busy  town 
builds  its  school-houses  and  its  churches  to  attest 
its  earnest  and  its  hopeful  work.  The  little  village 
on  the  edge  of  the  lake  through  which  a  quarter 
of  a  century  ago  a  loaded  team  could  scarcely  find 
a  safe  passage,  has  become  a  huge  and  command- 
ing city,  claiming  the  admiration  of  the  world,  and 
built,  not  like  St.  Petersburg,  by  the  command  of 
an  imperious  and  obstinate  king,  but  by  the  royal 
will    and   generosity    of  a  free  and    ambitious    people. 

If    with     this    immense     commercial     vigor     which 


30  JULY    4,     1867. 

attracts  the  young  men  of  the  whole  country  there 
shall  be  interwoven  the  true  spirit  of  republican 
society  and  government ;  if  a  true  radicalism  in 
politics,  the  radicalism  which  knows  no  local  issues, 
which  recognizes  no  geographical  lines,  but  loves 
the  whole  country  from  ocean  to  ocean  and  from 
Gulf  to  Lakes,  shall  keep  pace  with  this  magnifi- 
cent and  rapid  progress ;  and  if,  above  all,  a  spirit 
of  justice,  morality  and  pure  religion  shall  crown 
the  increasing  power  of  the  glorious  West ;  if  she 
will  only  hew  the  corner-stones  of  her  temples  of 
religion,  art  and  commerce  out  of  our  own  Ply- 
mouth Rock,  we  will  not  envy  her  her  greatness, 
but  give  her,  and  the  tens  of  thousands  of  our 
New -England  boys  who  are  her  sinew  and  her 
strength,  our  hearty  God-speed,  proud  to  believe 
that  when  a  dozen  generations  shall  have  passed 
away,  and  her  ten  millions  have  become  an  hun- 
dred, the  dear  old  flag,  hallowed  by  the  sacred 
memories  of  two  great  struggles,  will  stand  for  the 
same  liberty  and  the  same  republican  justice  be- 
tween all  classes  of  which  it  is  the  type  to-day. 
Brethren  of  the  West,  we  strike  palms  with  you. 
New  England  greets  you  on  this  anniversary.  We 
see  the  glory  that  awaits  you.  We  believe  that 
the    tide    of    humanity,  that   has    already     swept     five 


ORATION.  31 

hundred  miles  beyond  the  Father  of  Waters,  will 
keep  its  onward  course  until  it  grazes  its  herds  on 
the  slopes  of  the  Rocky  Mountains.  We  can  al- 
ready hear  the  wind  vibrating  the  Eolian  wire  that 
flashes  our  smiles  and  tears,  our  hopes  and  fears, 
to  the  Pacific  shore  ;  and  we  can  almost  hear  the 
rattling  of  the  train  that  starts  from  a  Boston  de- 
pot, that  winds  through  eastern  farms,  and  that 
strings  all  the  great  cities  of  the  North  upon  the 
same  line  of  light  and  love,  waking  the  echoes  in 
the  city  by  the  Golden  Gate.  Let  us  always 
stand  together,  and  in  our  greatness  let  us  never 
forget  that  that  government  alone  is  lasting  that 
knows  the  right  and  has  the  moral  courage  to 
brand  all  traitors  with  infamy,  and  defend  all  man- 
hood  in    every    class    and    of   every    color. 

And  now,  gentlemen,  what  shall  I  say  —  what 
can  I  say  —  of  the  New-England  element  of  our 
American  nationality'?  It  is  always  with  pride  that 
we  contemplate  the  character  of  that  influence  which 
comes  from  our  educational  institutions  and  our 
political  principles,  and  which  is  doing  so  much  to 
temper  and  give  tone  to  the  public  opinion  of  the 
whole  country.  Surely,  it  is  not  merely  in  a 
boastful  mood  that  we  look  on  the  long  and  glorious 
vista  behind   us,  and   feel    every   nerve  tingle  in  glad 


32  JULY    4,     18G7. 

thanksgiving  that  we  are  the  sons  of  noble  sires. 
The  grandeur  of  New  England  lies  in  the  fact,  that 
in  every  political  and  military  struggle,  the  end  has 
been  the  advocacy  of  some  higher  political  principle, 
or  the  demand  for  a  larger  charity  and  a  wider 
freedom.  New  England,  in  the  history  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  with  her  common  schools  in 
every  street,  in  every  village  and  hamlet  —  with 
her  thousand  presses  that  scatter  the  daily  news 
over  every  hill  and  valley ;  with  her  white 
spires  rising  from  every  spot  where  an  hundred 
sturdy  farmers  build  their  huts  —  stands  as  the 
type  of  the  foremost  thought  and  hope  of 
human  progress.  She  began  her  career  when  the 
Mayflower  cast  anchor,  freighted  with  that  precious 
heroism  which  the  Old  World  could  ill  spare,  but 
which  laid  the  corner-stone  of  the  New  World  in 
ecclesiastical  freedom.  She  was  true  to  her  birth- 
right when  she  dared  to  spill  a  brother's  blood  on 
the  field  of  Lexington,  crying  out  with  Roman 
courage :  Not  that  I  love  England  less,  but  that  I 
love  freedom  more.  She  was  not  unworthy  of  her 
ancestry  when  in  the  last  struggle  she  lifted  up  her 
voice  before  the  smoke  of  the  first  battle  had 
rolled  away,  demanding,  in  the  name  of  the  national 
sacrifice    about   to    be    placed    upon    the    bloody    altar 


ORATION.  33 

of  war,  universal  liberty  and  the  civil  rights  of  all 
classes.  And  to-day,  as  in  no  other  part  of  the 
country,  radical  thought,  that  seeks  to  destroy  our 
prejudices,  social  and  political,  that  advocates  the 
plain  rights  of  man  or  woman,  finds  in  our  midst 
a  welcome  and  a  hearing.  It  is  our  boast  and 
pride  that  we  fear  nothing  except  ignorance  and 
caste.  We  have  built  our  power  out  of  a  knowl- 
edge how  to  read  and  think  ;  we  believe  in  nothing 
so  much  as  in  the  school-book  ;  we  have  no  hope 
for  the  future  except  that  which  comes  from  the 
school-house  ;  we  place  the  most  implicit  trust  in  an 
educated  public  opinion,  and  we  believe  that  a  man's 
title  to  nobility  should  be  sought  for  in  his  brain  and 
heart,  and   not   in  the    color    of  his   skin. 

That  public  opinion  is  our  bulwark  and  our 
strength.  It  is  not  swayed  by  passion ;  it  is  not 
carried  too  far  by  a  popular  favorite.  It  looked 
with  unmixed  admiration  upon  Sherman  as  he  swept 
like  a  tornado  from  the  mountains  to  the  sea, 
tearing  up  secession  by  the  roots ;  but  when  the 
hero,  for  a  moment  only,  doffed  his  purple  and  put 
on  the  cap  and  bells,  it  stood  still  in  mute  aston- 
ishment and  regret,  and  not  a  single  shout  was 
heard  for  one  who  could  have  the  whole  of  our 
love   while   he   was    just,   but   who  was    met   by   the 


34  JULY    4,     1867. 

people's   frown   the    very  moment  he   stepped   beyond 
the   general   into    the    politician. 

A  Parisian  crowd  follows  its  leader  anywhere. 
It  has  no  aim,  no  policy,  no  goal.  Admiring  only 
the  brilliancy  of  heroic  deeds,  it  is  often  led  by 
this  will-o'-the-wisp  into  anarchy  and  chaos.  The 
New  England  people  admire  and  appland  only  the 
man  who  represents  them,  who  is  doing  brave 
work  for  them  and  for  their  children,  and  whose 
heroism  results  in  larger  rights.  And  so  we  have 
idealized  the  man  who  was  our  President,  not 
because  he  was  a  president,  but  because  he  was 
an  honest  man.  As  the  ancient  Greeks  lifted 
their  mighty  heroes  into  demi-gods,  and  soon 
forgot  that  they  had  ever  been  human,  with 
sharp  idiosyncrasies  and  unpleasant  peculiarities, 
so  have  the  American  people  lifted  up  their 
martyr-chief,  Abraham  Lincoln,  so  high  that 
we  shall  never  again  see  his  awkwardness,  his 
coarseness,  but  only  his  truthfulness,  his  moral 
courage,  his  calm  sagacity,  and  his  fidelity  to  the 
great  purpose  of  the  blood-stained  hour.  And,  in 
like  fashion,  we  turn  away  in  sadness,  if  not  in 
indignation,  from  that  man,  whether  he  be  Presi- 
dent, Secretary  of  State,  or  Attorney-General,  who 
tampers    with    the     plain     rights     of    the    loyal,    and 


ORATION 


35 


coquets  with  what  is  disloyal.  We  respect  no  one 
except  the  man  who  is  in  the  right,  and  who 
shows  it  by  throwing  his  political  influence  into  the 
same  scale  that  holds  the  memory  of  half  a  million 
dead  or  maimed  soldiers.  Your  education,  your 
history,  culminates  at  that  point.  It  .is  your  divine 
right,  it  is  a  duty  you  owe  to  the  past,  to  the 
present  and  to  the  great  future,  to  turn  aside  from 
him,  from  them,  from  all,  whatever  badge  of  office 
they  wear,    who    are    recreant   to    the    people's    will. 

And  so,  to-day,  looking  on  the  struggle  between 
the  Executive  on  the  one  hand,  honest  or  dishonest, 
who  has  forgiven  the  arch-traitor,  who  will  hang 
his  meanest  subordinate  when  the  disgusting  details 
have  all  been  told,  who  vetoed  the  Military  Bill 
because  it  gave  unlimited  and  despotic  power  into 
the  hands  of  subordinate  officials,  and  who  now 
removes  those  officials  on  the  ground  that  they  have 
no  power  whatever  except  to  disperse  mobs  and 
quell  disturbances,  who  does  not,  and  who  does  not 
intend  to  accord  with  the  will  of  the  glorious  dead, 
or  the  will  of  the  living  who  gave  their  all  for 
Liberty ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  a  simple  Major- 
General  who  does  not  know  how  to  pull  the  wires 
of  political  preferment,  who  knows  only  his  plain 
and    simple    duty,    to    remove    all    rebels    from    office. 


36  JULY    4,    1867. 

and  to  put  in  their  places  loyal  and  trustworthy 
men,  and  who  does  that  duty  with  a  singleness  of 
purpose  and  a  moral  courage  that  stamps  him  a 
true  hero  in  every  fibre,  I  say,  in  that  great  strug- 
gle, the  people  care  absolutely  nothing  for  the 
prestige  of  the  sceptre  which  the  one  man  wTields, 
and  do  not  regard  the  weakness  of  the  other ;  but, 
looking  only  at  the  righteousness  of  the  cause,  cry 
out  with  one  voice,  and  that  a  voice  of  thunder, 
Mr.  President,  you  are  wrong,  and  you  must  yield, 
and  General  Sheridan,  hero  of  a  hundred  fights, 
you    are   right,   and  we    will    sustain    you. 

New  England  has  always  held  her  place  in  the  van  of 
the  great  array  of  progress.  While  rebellion  was  being 
organized,  and  all  through  its  short,  convulsive  life,  it 
bestowed  its  heartiest  anathemas  upon  us ;  but  now 
that  rebellion  is  dead,  the  people  of  the  South  are 
beginning  to  feel  that  the  most  permanent  reconstruc- 
tion demands  the  adoption  of  the  self-same  radical 
thoughts  and  principles  which  grew  and  flourished  only 
on  New-England  soil.  That  love  of  liberty  which  has 
been  cherished  among  our  hills  for  two  generations, 
which  the  South  has  vainly  combated  both  on  the 
floors  of  Congress  by  word  and  bludgeon,  and  on  the 
battle-field  by  sword  and  starvation,  has  at  last  become 
the   corner-stone  of  the  new  edifice,  and  not  only  the 


ORATION.  37 

common  people  but  even  the  generals  of  the  disbanded 
army  are  uniting  their  efforts  to  lift  it  into  place.  It 
cannot  be  many  months  before  the  lines  of  caste,  and 
the  prejudice  of  color  will  give  way  to  the  oncoming 
civilization,  and  South  Carolina  and  Massachusetts, 
united  in  the  beginning  in  defence '  of  a  common 
cause,  separated  for  three  generations  by  the  most 
implacable  differences  of  policy  and  administration, 
shall  strike  palms  again  to  carry  on  the  same  cause 
which  gave  us  the  heroism  of  the  last  century.  And 
gentlemen,  we  can  to-day  remember  with  becoming 
pride  that  from  the  first  hour  when  the  old  bell  in 
Independence  Hall  sent  its  ominous  but  glorious 
echoes  along  our  granite  hills  to  this  very  moment, 
the  course  of  New  England  has  been  single  and 
consistent.  Liberty  and  justice  was  the  cry  which 
then  woke  the  patriotism  of  our  fathers ;  liberty 
and  justice  called  their  sons  to  arms  in  1860,  and 
the  love  of  liberty  and  justice  constitute  the  grandeur 
of  New-England  manhood  and  womanhood  to-day. 
Our  course  has  been  straight  on.  Other  States, 
moved  by  a  different  policy,  made  a  long  and  sad 
detour  from  the  highway  of  true  republicanism, 
trusting  to  the  fallacies  of  State  rights,  slavery  and 
caste,  and  after  wandering  for  ninety  years,  insisting 
all    the    while  that  their  path    was    the   only  road  to 


38  JULY    4,     1  867. 

national  strength  and  glory,  growing  weaker  every 
day,  and  every  day  more  insolent  and  reckless,  an- 
swering all  questions  with  the  knife  or  the  pistol, 
they  have  at  last  laid  the  whole  pile  of  slavery's 
chains  aside,  and  come  back  to  our  path  to  confess  that 
there  can  be  no  permanent  greatness  and  no  enduring 
strength  except  under  the  principles  which  have 
always  been  the  crown  and  glory  of  New  England. 
Ah,  gentlemen,  it  is  no  common  victory  which 
we  have  won  !  It  is  nothing  less  than  the  triumph 
of  free  speech,  free  thought  throughout  the  conti- 
nent, the  adoption  everywhere  in  America  of  those 
truths  that  have  always  been  so  dear  to  us.  Here- 
after the  flag  shall  mean  more  than  ever.  The 
stain  has  been  washed  out  in  tears  and  blood  ;  a 
new  era  has  begun  ;  the  gray  streaks  of  another 
and  a  better  political  day  are  breaking  through 
the  clouds  ;  slavery  is  dead,  freedom  has  been 
crystallized  into  law  ;  justice  has  become  a  possi- 
bility, and  the  ark  of  our  national  covenant,  held 
up  in  the  arms  of  the  largest-hearted  heroism 
and  patriotism  the  world  has  yet  seen,  has  been 
carried  safely  through  the  sea  of  blood,  and  placed 
in  security  upon  the  eternal  rock  of  a  tri- 
umphant   republicanism. 

Fellow-citizens,     I      congratulate      you     upon     the 


ORATION.  39 

achievements  of  the  past,  and  the  transcendent 
hopes  of  the  future.  Let  us  look  forward  to  the 
hour,  not  distant,  when  all  the  people  of  this 
country  shall  be  bound  more  closely  than  ever 
before  by  a  common  interest  and  purpose.  Our 
brethren  of  the  South,  redeemed  from  the  fatal 
error  of  three  generations,  shall  till  the  rich  soil 
with  free  hands,  and  confess  that  labor  urged  by 
the  whip  can  never  compete  with  that  earnest  and 
ambitious  toil  which  always  marks  the  freeman. 
Our  brethren  of  the  West,  hardy,  sturdy,  brave  and 
true,  shall  educate  the  millions  who  find  a  home  in 
the  great  prairies,  and  develop  the  marvellous  resour- 
ces of  a  region  richer  than  our  thought  or  hope, 
and  New  England,  God  grant  it,  shall  keep  her 
place  at  the  head  of  every  progressive  and  reforma- 
tory movement.  Then  we  shall  be  one  people  from 
the  shores  washed  by  the  Atlantic,  to  the  western 
slope  where  the  mild  Pacific  sings  its  lullaby  to  the 
setting  sun ;  and  from  the  lakes  of  the  North  to 
the  warm  gulf  of  the  South,  while  over  us  shall  wave 
the  flag  that  means   Liberty  and  Justice  for  all. 


BOSTON  COLLEGE 


3  9031    031    10009  2 


